


Page Turner

by Hekate1308



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fictional!Cas, Jasper Fforde Fusion, M/M, Thursday Next!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 21:06:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13935408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekate1308/pseuds/Hekate1308
Summary: When the Literary Agency had first knocked on his door, Dean had told Sam and his brother hadn’t stopped laughing about it for a week.





	Page Turner

When the  _Literary Agency_  had first knocked on his door, Dean had told Sam and his brother hadn’t stopped laughing about it for a week.

He’d stopped when Dean had informed him that he had accepted the job offer, and that one of the reasons he’d never read as many books as he liked was simply that he had always been a natural book jumper – in fact, he was much too good at it. “Remember when I used to read Knights of the Round Table to you, Sammy? I stopped after I one day landed right in front of King Arthur himself, and let me tell you, A Kid in King Arthur’s court made it out to be much more fun than it actually was.”

Sam never laughed about his new job again after that.

Anyway, that was how Dean ended up as a Literary Agent – in the he-actually-went-into-books-and-tried-to-make-sure-no-one-ruined-the-plot-or-did-anything-else-stupid sense, not the other one.

In the eight years since he had joined the Agency, he’d had many adventures, but he’d never found a partner he was comfortable working with.

“Guess what” the smile of the Cheshire Cat (Dean continued to call him that, any regional changes be damned) asked.

He didn’t even look up from his desk in the Headquarters – located at Norland Park from Sense and Sensibility, in the ballroom that conveniently wasn’t mentioned in the novel. “The March Hare and the Hatter have finally made peace with time and have become sane.”

“No.”

“Miss Havisham has decided to abandon her grief and raise Estella into a nice girl.”

“No.”

“Sherlock Holmes actually went down the Fall and now we have a problem.”

“You are as cheerful as a mouse in a fridge full of cheese.”

“Wouldn’t that make them really happy?” Dean asked.

“Not if they were lactose-intolerant.”

He had learned long ago not to pay attention to what the Cheshire Cat was saying – unless it was important.

“You are getting a new partner.”

“I thought I was allowed to work alone after –“ Dean stopped talking abruptly. The last attempt to partner him up with someone was not something he liked to think about.

There was a reason a syndrome was named after Peter Pan. If Dean ever had to speak to that permanently sugar-flashed kid again, he was going to Neverland and joining the pirates.

“The Bellman seems to have found the perfect candidate, as perfect as a bike for a fish.”

“Cheshire” Dean said tiredly, “I do have to finish the report, and you know how K. is – he’ll try to have his two executioners from  _The Trial_ come here again to deal with me.”

“Fine, fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The smile vanished, but the cat without its mouth appeared instead. Dean simply rolled his eyes as he took his sweet time to finally dissolve into thin air.

“Agent Winchester!” the bellman called out, as excited as if he’d finally found a Snark that wasn’t a boojum. “I have found a new partner for you!”

He forced himself to smile at his boss. “How wonderful.”

The Bellman frowned. “I have tried many weeks, I have tried many days –“

“Yes, yes, of course, sir” Dean said quickly to interrupt what would undoubtedly turn into a weird poem of giant proportions if he wasn’t careful. “So where is he?”

“He’s on his way here” the Bellman answered, pouting because Dean hadn’t allowed him to recite what he considered some of his best work.

Ten minutes later, Dean’s new partner entered the ballroom and the Bellman introduced them.

“Agent Winchester, this is Castiel Novak, from the  _Castiel Novak – Private Eye_  series.”

Dean had never heard of those books, but that didn’t have to mean anything; hell, one of his best friends in the Book world, Crowley, the King of Hell, came from a rather pathetically selling little-known series called Supernatural by some wannabe named Carver Edlund.

Now, not having any knowledge of the qualities the author of Castiel Novak – Private Eye had bestowed on his main character, he still had his experience and it wasn’t difficult to gather information.

For one thing, the author had definitely been one of those who felt that their detective wasn’t going to draw in reade3rs unless they made him ridiculously hot. Tussled dark hair, blue eyes, slight stubble… Not even the trench coat distracted from how he looked, and that was saying something.

Which, by the way… Dean almost winced. Those trench coats must have been old-fashioned when he was first conceived.

“Dean Winchester” he introduced himself.

“Hello, Dean. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Really, and a deep voice too? What the Hell? Was he really a Private Eye or was this another soft porn series for bored housewives (not that Dean saw anything wrong with that; he’d had quite a few adventures in fanfiction).

Cas was now staring at him and – ah, of course. Hot guy, socially awkward, solving murders, probably with an equally hot female assistant in the novels who looked after him and eventually dragged him before the altar.

“So” he asked the Bellman, who was writing down something (could have been about his and Cas’ introduction, but Dean doubted it; more than likely it was another stanza about a Snark), “What’s the case?”

He looked up and blinked. “Oh” he finally decided, “Just something easy for you as a new team. The wife has decided to elope with her lover in Fitzgerald’s short story The Cut-Glass Bowl.”

Dean sighed; no matter which one, ever single piece of Fitzgerald’s fiction was drowning in booze. This wasn’t going to be fun. “You ever tried Fitzgerald before?”

Cas blinked. Then, he answered mechanically, “I am looking forward to the experience.”

Whoever had written him that love interest he had to have, they wouldn’t have it easy.

* * *

“Ugh” Dean sank down on his chair, breathing the fresh, clean air of Norland Park. “I like to take a drink or two, but this is…”

“It certainly seemed excessive”  Cas agreed, sitting down at his own desk next to Dean’s the Bellman must have arranged for him while they were chasing down Mrs. Harold Piper and Mr. Freddy Geddney.

Problem was, all of Fitzgerald’s fiction had been written by a man who had had a…. tumultuous relationship with his wife, and it showed. Dean rubbed his forehead; she’d actually thrown the cut-glass bowl after him.

To his credit, Cas had wrestled her to the floor and they’d done a decent job of convincing both to go back to the one scene they shared in literature.

“I think” he said, “We’ll make a good team.”

Cas looked up from his desk, somewhat surprised it seemed; but then he just nodded.

* * *

They turned out to be indeed a very good team; over the next two years, they became as legendary as Edgar Allan Poe and The Headless Horseman, or Thursday Next and Miss Havisham.

Cas and Dean became close friends, the later incredibly baffled when he visited Cas and found that no love interest had ever been written for him in a book series that consisted of ten rather heavy volumes; and then he’d just felt sorry for him when Cas confided in him that sometimes, he felt very lonely because of it.

This bastard of an author had never even given him a friend, for crying out loud; it was just him in his dingy little office and the cases he solved.

So Dean visited him on a regular basis, or invited him back to his place in the real world, when they weren’t on a case. Cas always came, absolutely delighted to finally have a reason to go there.

“Do you know” he said to Dean one day as they were visiting a bee farm because Cas happened to be fascinated with them, “That there are no bees in my world? My author forgot to put them in.”

Cas deserved bees, Dean thought, as he watched his face light up at seeing the hives.

Cas deserved a lot of things.

And yet, Dean wasn’t completely honest with him.

Because there was one thing Dean hadn’t told him.

But how was he supposed to confess to a fictional character that he was falling for him?

* * *

Sam, of course, tried to be logical about it.

“You need to get out more – in the real world, Dean. You know Cas can’t – reciprocate your feelings. He wasn’t written for romantic affection, you said.”

“I said he had no love interest in the books” Dean replied flatly. He didn’t know how he was supposed to explain to Sam that many of the book characters were nothing like the way they had been written originally; it was difficult to understand for someone who wasn’t  a natural book jumper.

“Still, Dean – he’s fictional. He’ll never age, or die.”

“I know, alright? I know it’s hopeless”.

And yet, his heart beat faster the next morning yet again when Cas gave him a gently smile as he greeted him.

* * *

“You’ve got it bad, darling” Crowley drawled. “So, so bad.”

Wasn’t that freaking ironic, coming from him. Crowley had originally been written as the antagonist of the two main characters, the king of Hell, a bad-ass demon, but was busy changing the narrative.

There was simply that one small detail Carver Edlund hadn’t realized: Crowley was actually quite decent once you got to know him.

Dean didn’t say so, however, and just shook his head. “I know. And my brother already told me it’s useless, so don’t even think about it.”

“What, me doing the right thing? Sorry, Squirrel, you’re barking up the wrong tree here.”

“I think you got your metaphors mixed up.”

“That’s what happens when the quality of writing varies from instalment to instalment” he sighed. “Did you know that in the last book I was supposed to die?”

“What?”

“Don’t worry, I changed it.”

How Crowley got away with doing stuff like that, Dean would never know, but he was damn glad he was sitting next to him, as alive as he’d ever be.

* * *

“Well this is… different” Dean said as he stepped into Cas’ apartment. Before there’d barely been any furniture except for seemingly a million shelves to hold his book collection.

Now, there was a couch and a TV stand, and a few pictures of –

Cas and Dean.

He’d actually managed to bring pictures of them into his –

“How did you do that?”

“Oh, this is my apartment from the second novel. There’s not a single scene set in my place, so it –“

“Like Norland Park’s ballroom.”

“Exactly.”

Dean nodded. “Smart.”

“Crowley gave me the idea.”

Dean frowned. “You know him?”

“We met at your last birthday party” Cas reminded him.

True. Both his friends from the real world and the Book World had shown up at Dean’s apartment, and it had been surprisingly difficult to differentiate who belonged where.

“He gave me a few tips” Cas explained, “How to… move around your plot, so to speak.”

“Oh?”

Cas nodded. “Since this scene doesn’t exist in the novel – I’m free to do as I please.”

He stepped up to Dean and reached up to gently cradle his face in his hands. “is that… okay?”

“More than okay” he breathed and went in for the kiss.

“Dean…” Cas said much later. “I – I have wanted this for a while, but I’m fictional, and you’re –“

Dean kissed him again. “We’ll manage” he decided, “We always do.”

And they did.


End file.
